Author's Notes: A romance!bomb written for SecretlyBronte, as part of the preliminaries of ds_match 2007.

The shimmering waves of the Northern Lights make the all-weather orange of the tent glow with shifting patterns of purple in front of Ray's unfocused eyes. This is the fifth day of sledding around the great white nowhere with Fraser, and Ray has finally given into the fact that if he doesn't want significant bits of him to freeze off, the sleeping bags will have to be shared.

So, now Ray's warm, sure, but he's also holding himself unnaturally still--flat on his back, arms crossed so that his hands are stuffed in his armpits and absolutely cannot wander anywhere... untoward--and trying to figure out how to keep this all platonic when he's been thinking thoughts that are anything but for the last few months. At least Fraser's asleep. That's one small blessing at least.

The fabric of the tent bells slightly in the wind, making purple ripples that blur across Ray's vision and make him squint and resist the urge to turn his head away. If he moves he'll either end up with a face full of icy cold sleeping bag, or Fraser's neck. The former is bad, and the latter would be very, very good, which also makes it bad.

Ray also needs to scratch his nose. And his right wrist. And just behind his left ear, which he can't do because if he moves then all the untoward things that have been happening inside his head for the past half hour will be happening for real.

And then Fraser will kick him out the tent and leave him for the polar bears while he runs off to the North Pole.

The North West Areas really, really suck.

Ray really has to move though. Staying still is just not something that he can do; he gets this itch, this fizz, just under his skin and he just has to shake it out somehow.

Maybe if he moves really, really slowly?

Tensing himself up even more, Ray begins to inch over onto his side, simultaneously freeing one hand to scrub furiously at his nose and ear. He utterly misjudges the maneuvering room provided by two sleeping bags zipped together, however, and ends up sprawling half on top of Fraser, who lets out a winded little huff and jerks awake.

Ray can feel the untoward things dancing around behind his eyes. He's pretty sure that the ones that aren't waving banners have megaphones and klaxons. Also, he's rock hard against Fraser's hip. So it's with a kind of sick resignation (do polar bears start with your feet or your head?) that Ray finds himself staring into Fraser's face, painted purple and with night-blown pupils.

Fraser blinks and shifts slightly--and Ray's just waiting for the polite Canadian equivalent of a kick in the head. It'll probably involve an Inuit story about ptarmigan--and he doesn't shout or recoil or do anything except stare right back at Ray.

"Uh." Ray ventures, trying to clear his throat for an apology, except that Fraser's hand is suddenly covering his mouth and Fraser's eyes aren't just windows to his soul, they're fucking trap doors and Ray is lost entirely, falling down.

"Hi," Ray husks, when he manages to come back to himself somewhat and notice that Fraser's hands are now on his shoulders, shifting him into a more comfortable position, wrapped around Fraser.

"Hi," Fraser replies, his voice sounding equally rusty. His hands slide down Ray's back and then he's hugging Ray tightly and it's all that Ray can do to hug back.